It is meant to be low single target healing. It works with our other spells like none of the other healers that are on the post-cata shaman model.
It is channeled, but you pay for the channel per sec rather than at the cast. You are not penalized for switching targets.
You say it feels like you're stuck on one target but this is for single target healing. If multiple ppl are taking damage, you can use spinning crane kick and uplift.

Honestly, I can't understand why you feel limited at all. Monks have the most control over their healing than any other healer, especially when it comes to soothing.
We pay by the second rather than per cast. Which means we get out heals in faster, or at least gradually instead of in lumps.
We have almost no cast times. I've played all the healing classes and this is the best thing about monk healing to me. You add healing to your filler heal instantly.
How is this inhibiting?!

Mechanics-wise you will not find a healer with more control over their single target heals, and aoe healing should never be a problem. If you were complaining about soothing's mana cost or tank healing in general, then it would be reasonable. Yes, we need better single target numbers on a raid level and soothing is too much mana for it's rng. It will be better next patch with the buffs, but your problem is not with numbers. It is with design, which I can't really understand.

I am pretty sure SM upfront cost does penalize you for switching targets.

---------- Post added 2012-11-12 at 08:57 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Banditkid

In 25 mans, with enough people stacked, sure. In 10 mans, the extra amount of time spent using SCK will almost certainly be less healing than the amount of Uplifts that you lose.

Uplift + Renewing Mist & SCK/Jab spam far outperforms anything you could do with "fistweaving", Uplift alone is ridiculous on that fight, Mistweavers relentlessly shit all over every other healer on that fight even without "fistweaving".

On Mel'Jarak there's no bonus damage so I have no idea what you're talking about.

Yes in fact I did 99k hps on Garalon a couple of hours ago. To me, there's broad variances in what exactly fistweaving is, sometimes it's just using Jab with Serpent's Zeal, sometime's it's keeping up the TP buff too, and sometimes it's all out DPS rotation. On Garalon, I roll around to the legs and Jab on them with Serpent's Zeal up while spamming RM and Uplift. The double eminence from your jabs is pretty good.

On Wind Lord, he takes 33% more damage for each add pack that has died. by the last part of the fight, you should be full-on fistweaving while preparing TBT'd RMs for Uplift spam during Rain of Blades.

Then why are you guys playing MW? This is obviously not the class for you.

That didnt make sense...We are talking about that healing is boring if you do it the fistweaving way because healing through damage have always been boring.
Luckely you can heal as a monk without being a fistweaver

That didnt make sense...We are talking about that healing is boring if you do it the fistweaving way because healing through damage have always been boring.
Luckely you can heal as a monk without being a fistweaver

Sure, but aside from Soothing mist you aren't actually targeting anyone, and chances are you are just soothing mist on the tank to get chi.
If you want a healer that targets other players, then this is the wrong class.

That didnt make sense...We are talking about that healing is boring if you do it the fistweaving way because healing through damage have always been boring.
Luckely you can heal as a monk without being a fistweaver

CAN you heal without using any melee abilities, yes. SHOULD you ever do that unless it's required, absolutely not. If you're that opposed to how the class works, go play a different class.

It is meant to be low single target healing. It works with our other spells like none of the other healers that are on the post-cata shaman model.
It is channeled, but you pay for the channel per sec rather than at the cast. You are not penalized for switching targets.
You say it feels like you're stuck on one target but this is for single target healing. If multiple ppl are taking damage, you can use spinning crane kick and uplift.

Honestly, I can't understand why you feel limited at all. Monks have the most control over their healing than any other healer, especially when it comes to soothing.
We pay by the second rather than per cast. Which means we get out heals in faster, or at least gradually instead of in lumps.
We have almost no cast times. I've played all the healing classes and this is the best thing about monk healing to me. You add healing to your filler heal instantly.
How is this inhibiting?!

Mechanics-wise you will not find a healer with more control over their single target heals, and aoe healing should never be a problem. If you were complaining about soothing's mana cost or tank healing in general, then it would be reasonable. Yes, we need better single target numbers on a raid level and soothing is too much mana for it's rng. It will be better next patch with the buffs, but your problem is not with numbers. It is with design, which I can't really understand.

EDIT: My point in the middle was not that our healing is slower but that there's little down time. Rather than waiting for casts, you are almost always pumping out heals. There may be times when you'll want to slow down for your mana but every healer does that and it's the nature of healing. My point is that you don't have to stand up and cast, you get to control your healing in real time.

Nice read, specially because you´re not all like "IF YOU DONT FISTWEAVING YOU´RE DOING IT WRONG!"

I guess it is the wrong class for me. I do like how monk healing dont really have any downtime CDwise as you say, but as i mentioned in my post, it just dosnt feel like we got any other healing spell (Other than the spells supported by Soothing Mist but that just feels waisted to cast if you dont use Soothing Mist) to cast as a quick main heal if someone other then the tank takes dmg, which is why i complain about Soothing Mist seems to be a very stricted main spell to pop here and there whenever theres no heavy AoE dmg going on and only 1 or 2 are taking dmg

My main is a Resto Shaman and when im healing i feel that i have a lot of free time where i not always have to stick to the tank because of Earth Shield and Riptide
My point is, i miss some monk healing spell that dosnt require Soothing Mist to be on the target and can leave the target alone for a little while, while i do other things in the raid / dungeon

Nice read, specially because you´re not all like "IF YOU DONT FISTWEAVING YOU´RE DOING IT WRONG!"

I guess it is the wrong class for me. I do like how monk healing dont really have any downtime CDwise as you say, but as i mentioned in my post, it just dosnt feel like we got any other healing spell (Other than the spells supported by Soothing Mist but that just feels waisted to cast if you dont use Soothing Mist) to cast as a quick main heal if someone other then the tank takes dmg, which is why i complain about Soothing Mist seems to be a very stricted main spell to pop here and there whenever theres no heavy AoE dmg going on and only 1 or 2 are taking dmg

My main is a Resto Shaman and when im healing i feel that i have a lot of free time where i not always have to stick to the tank because of Earth Shield and Riptide
My point is, i miss some monk healing spell that dosnt require Soothing Mist to be on the target and can leave the target alone for a little while, while i do other things in the raid / dungeon

You mean something like Renewing Mist? Because that's a hot that, if all jumps are used, will go on 4 people with just one cast. Uplift makes RM even more powerful as it heals everyone who has RM on them. If you can be in melee range, keeping Serpent's Zeal up is free healing and all you have to do is auto-attack. Spinning Crane Kick is great for phases when everyone is stacked up, and there are a lot in this tier. Surging Mist is your "oh shit" heal, Enveloping Mist can be quite good when the tank is taking high damage for extended periods of time. I'm not really sure what else you're looking for in a healing class. Monks are very versatile.

You mean something like Renewing Mist? Because that's a hot that, if all jumps are used, will go on 4 people with just one cast. Uplift makes RM even more powerful as it heals everyone who has RM on them. If you can be in melee range, keeping Serpent's Zeal up is free healing and all you have to do is auto-attack. Spinning Crane Kick is great for phases when everyone is stacked up, and there are a lot in this tier. Surging Mist is your "oh shit" heal, Enveloping Mist can be quite good when the tank is taking high damage for extended periods of time. I'm not really sure what else you're looking for in a healing class. Monks are very versatile.

Renewing Mist seems to be very invisble, in that way that it dosnt seem to do much, but hey im only lvl 85 atm so i guess that it gets better at lvl 90. Together with Uplift its really nice tho.
Surging Mist dosnt feel like a "Oh shit!" heal to me, specially because i rather want to cast it while Soothing Mist is on to use its full potential, which requires you to quickly switch Soothing Mist to your target and then cast Surging Mist
I guess i should try to move away from the whole "Soothing Mist is needed" thing, in order to enjoy it more i dont know

Nice read, specially because you´re not all like "IF YOU DONT FISTWEAVING YOU´RE DOING IT WRONG!"

I guess it is the wrong class for me. I do like how monk healing dont really have any downtime CDwise as you say, but as i mentioned in my post, it just dosnt feel like we got any other healing spell (Other than the spells supported by Soothing Mist but that just feels waisted to cast if you dont use Soothing Mist) to cast as a quick main heal if someone other then the tank takes dmg, which is why i complain about Soothing Mist seems to be a very stricted main spell to pop here and there whenever theres no heavy AoE dmg going on and only 1 or 2 are taking dmg

My main is a Resto Shaman and when im healing i feel that i have a lot of free time where i not always have to stick to the tank because of Earth Shield and Riptide
My point is, i miss some monk healing spell that dosnt require Soothing Mist to be on the target and can leave the target alone for a little while, while i do other things in the raid / dungeon

I understand now. You want something like beacon, life bloom, PW:S or earth shield. Something that's a 'set it and forget it' so that you can focusing on topping everyone else off.
We don't exactly have an equivalent but I honestly like that. I think we're quite active healers and we don't rely on those things as much as our own reflexes. However, I do use enveloping mist for this function to a lesser extent, in conjunction with renewing (which helps you the other injured party members too). Have you tried that? I put renewing on the tank, expel harm and soothing for one extra chi.....this gives me three to use enveloping mists. This gives the tank a buffer. The hot is quite powerful even without soothing being channeled. You can then top others off.
Mixing chi wave in may also make it easier. Chi wave is perfect for light damage and topping off in 5-mans during non-heavy aoe damage.
Don't be afraid to use enveloping mists. It is not just an emergency/heavy damage heal.

You also said you find them spells wasted if you don't use soothing. I like it conceptually, it's like adding stuff to this stream of healing. It is really a perk though. Not that you should ever not do it....but it's a small price to pay for instant spells. You play a resto shaman? You use Riptide before a Greater Healing Wave then, for the exact same function. Except instead of a reduced cast time, it's instant and a hot (which means you can leave the tank alone a little). Optimally you'll want to use soothing while enveloping is going on but it's not a big issue in 5mans.

I think we're a little opposite to the other healers when it comes to this. While things like beacon, earth shield etc. allow you to give the tank a buffer while you top off dps, monks can leave the dps alone with renewing (and chi wave if you take it). Renewing means we give a buffer to everyone, while our tank healing is a bit more active.

If using enveloping and chi wave doesn't help, this just may not be your style. I love playing monk because it has little 'set it and forget it' type of mechanics outside of renewing (which has its own timing nuances to make up for it, in raids at least).

I understand now. You want something like beacon, life bloom, PW:S or earth shield. Something that's a 'set it and forget it' so that you can focusing on topping everyone else off.
We don't exactly have an equivalent but I honestly like that. I think we're quite active healers and we don't rely on those things as much as our own reflexes. However, I do use enveloping mist for this function to a lesser extent, in conjunction with renewing (which helps you the other injured party members too). Have you tried that? I put renewing on the tank, expel harm and soothing for one extra chi.....this gives me three to use enveloping mists. This gives the tank a buffer. The hot is quite powerful even without soothing being channeled. You can then top others off.
Mixing chi wave in may also make it easier. Chi wave is perfect for light damage and topping off in 5-mans during non-heavy aoe damage.
Don't be afraid to use enveloping mists. It is not just an emergency/heavy damage heal.

You also said you find them spells wasted if you don't use soothing. I like it conceptually, it's like adding stuff to this stream of healing. It is really a perk though. Not that you should ever not do it....but it's a small price to pay for instant spells. You play a resto shaman? You use Riptide before a Greater Healing Wave then, for the exact same function. Except instead of a reduced cast time, it's instant and a hot (which means you can leave the tank alone a little). Optimally you'll want to use soothing while enveloping is going on but it's not a big issue in 5mans.

I think we're a little opposite to the other healers when it comes to this. While things like beacon, earth shield etc. allow you to give the tank a buffer while you top off dps, monks can leave the dps alone with renewing (and chi wave if you take it). Renewing means we give a buffer to everyone, while our tank healing is a bit more active.

If using enveloping and chi wave doesn't help, this just may not be your style. I love playing monk because it has little 'set it and forget it' type of mechanics outside of renewing (which has its own timing nuances to make up for it, in raids at least).

Thanks for the tips. I will try and change it up a bit next time i do a dungeon/raid and see how it goes

Except not really. You'll be channeling soothing most of the time on a tank, to generate chi to spam uplift more often.

But you obviously wouldn't know since you haven't even healed a full raid besides lfr yet on your monk.

Soothing is horrible for chi gen ATM. Unreliable and more expensive than jab per chi.
SCK*2/chi burst outperforms any version of uplift until uplift hits 10+ targets. This is true in 10s and 25s.
Even on fights where you get bonus damage on a boss, if its raid wide damage SCK*2/AoE heal is your biggest hps possible. And at no time will fist weaving outheal using chi burst or uplift ASSUMING it is raidwide damage. For spot healing it is acceptable. I consider fistweaving to be generating chi with jab. Using anything other than just keeping up serpents zeal is a massive healing loss

In dungeons I fistweave and spam SCK on trash and just generally dps my hps is through the roof comparing to what dungeons require and I do 40k+ hps while doing 30k dps. In dungeons fistweaving is optimal to make runs faster while higher output isn't needed. In raids, it's completely different.

Hard casting surging mist takes 1.5 sec doing it with soothing mist it still lands in 1.5 sec but increased cost and healing due to the 2 soothing mist ticks. Theres no need to do soothing mist if surging will already top ur target, you hardcast it. If target is low the extra soothing ticks wont hurt.

Soothing mist ticks once when you cast it and once after your global cooldown ends if you recast it you will get double ticks. One from the new soothing mist and one for the one you were channeling effectively making it 2x stronger if you repeat the process.

The thing is fistweaving pulls ahead on some fight but regular healing will pull ahead on fights requiring melee movement or downtime. On a patchwork fight doing a bit of both would be optimal until a tank dies and you eat hate strikes lol. 5 mans are trivial normal and heroic and quite doable in both ways just play to have fun imo.

I often fistweave a dungeon normal heal the next. Depends if we are fighting hot babes or ugly aboms sometimes